Hyderabad: All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday announced that his party would contest elections in the Seemanchal region of Bihar.
Addressing a press conference at Darussalam, the party headquarters, he said the MIM would fight for the constitution of a Regional Development Council under Article 371 of the Constitution for the Seemanchal area which is not only backward, but also underdeveloped.
The region comprises four districts — Araria, Purnea, Kishanganj, Katihar — and has 24 of Bihar’s 243 Assembly seats. Refraining from divulging the number of seats that the party would contest, Mr Owaisi said, “As part of the strategy we are not revealing the number of seats right now but soon we will disclose the number.”
The MIM has two MLAs in the Maharashtra Assembly, besides many corporators in urban bodies. Brushing aside the JD(U)’s accusation that the MIM was working in favour of the BJP and the argument of other political parties that the BJP wins wherever the MIM does not contest, Mr Owaisi said:
“The Delhi University election results were released recently and the ABVP made a clean sweep. We didn’t fight in Jharkhand or in Haryana, or in Jammu and Kashmir or in the municipal elections of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. This argument is completely wrong.”
He asked: “Why do these political parties assume that they are the only flag-bearers of secularism and that only they can fight communal forces? We have the capacity, capability and credibility to take on these forces.” He replied in the negative to a query about having pre-poll alliances. Asked about the UP elections, Mr Owaisi said there was still time. He said after winning in Seemanchal, the MIM would fight for overall development of the region at the Assembly and Parliament.
